Category: Care

“London local government is proud of the role our adult social care services play in supporting Londoners. As London Councils’ recent report on the State of Adult Social Care in London makes clear, the sector has achieved significant successes in recent years – but there are also major concerns about future provision.”

Last week London Councils released the State of Adult Social Care in London report. Councillor Ray Puddifoot talks us through adult social care in London – both the achievements and the challenges…

The Decent and Accessible Homes for Older People report aimed to understand the detrimental impact of poor housing on older people’s physical, mental and social wellbeing. As a result of this inquiry, the APPG for Ageing and Older People have made 13 recommendations for change, including the impact of poor quality, inaccessible housing on health, issues in supported housing and the private rented sector, as well as the importance of home improvement agencies.

In this week’s blog we take a look through the findings of the “Decent and Accessible Homes for Older People” report and see how the recommendations provided can help London to become an Age-friendly City.

“To help ensure that the voice of older people is heard and acted upon meaningfully, we need a long-term strategy that commits to the ongoing development, support, and appreciation of a workforce of nurses and allied health professionals who are working to lead, transform and sustain quality services for older people care.”

High quality care requires high quality professionals! Dr Joanne Fitzpatrick explains how the Older Persons Fellowship is helping to create a high quality workforce throughout the care sector.

“The stories of those without family in hospital are rarely heard, rarely actively sought out. In almost all cases complaints about treatment are raised by family members, if you don’t have a family, there is no one to raise complaints. An older person, ill, isolated and worried in hospital with little or no external visitors is not likely to “make a fuss”. As far as we know there has been no research targeted at finding out about the experiences of people ageing without children in hospital.”

We accept without question that if an older person requires treatment, it is undeniably better for them and for the hospital, that they have their family with them. But what about those who are ageing without children? Kirsty Woodard explains all:

“Since its introduction in Sutton, the Red Bag, which has been used with care home residents 2,000 times in south London since April 2017, has also stopped patients losing personal items such as dentures, glasses and hearing aids worth £290,000 in a year. The potential for the innovation is significant with a predicted two million more people aged over 75 in ten years’ time. This populace is also spending more years in ill-health than ever before.”

Thousands of care home residents will benefit from safer emergency hospital visits as the innovative Red Bag scheme will be extended across the whole of south London. Find out how!

“The conference was an opportunity to increase understanding of a range of perspectives from across the social care workforce and to develop greater knowledge of patients’ experiences when accessing both mental and physical healthcare. Attendees were also advised on the delivery of consistent messages between members of the health and social care workforce on the subject of mental and physical health needs. There was also plenty of opportunity to network – especially over lunch!”

This week, we were delighted to co-host the MaP Project Conference with Allied Health Solutions here at Tavis House. Find out all about the event here!

Later life should be a time of enjoyment and growth, but with cuts in local authority spending on older people and continuing pressures on the NHS, the picture often painted is a bleak one. In recent years resilience and self-care have become buzzwords around older peoples services, but are they just code for “cuts”, or is there something more to this movement? If we know what ageing well might look like, what can we put in place in the way of resilience and self-care that can make that a reality?

Our CEO Paul Goulden investigates resilience and self-care – what we can do for older people in our community, and what barriers need to be overcome.

“Technology needs to be at the forefront of this new era of social care. Technology companies such as Babylon and Google DeepMind are already starting to make significant progress towards empowering patients to improve the care they receive. Babylon, for example, offers healthcare via a mixture of artificial intelligence and video and text conversations with doctors and specialists. However, up until now, social care has failed to take advantage of digital innovation and advances in health technology.”

Technology has transformed the way we shop, travel and live our everyday lives. Healthcare company Cera argues that technology needs to transform the social care system too.

“Sometimes we are led to believe that projects such as a ten minute theatre performance by amateur actors with dementia is successful, but this may not be the case as an unusual and sophisticated art project doesn’t necessarily meet the needs of the participants. There is a hidden danger in progressive projects which are sometimes designed to attract participants and promote the work of the company or facilitator organising them, and not to serve the needs of the participants. It’s a blessing that so many artists and organisations are using art in healthcare settings but most of the time there are no assessments of the individuals’ needs or an evaluation of these projects. We keep proving success by showing pictures with older people laughing while they are holding a puppet or a brush. If the camera lens is focused on a happy older lady doing yoga, then out of frame is likely to be an older man with advanced dementia, who is asleep on an armchair. Does this make this activity successful?”

Activities in care homes can have a huge impact upon the lives of older people, but we must make sure the workshops cater to the needs of the participants, not the performers! Eirini Dermitzaki explores how we can make sure care home activities best serve older Londoners.

“The benefits of looking at an older person’s health and social care needs are clear. If an older person continually goes to the doctor with conditions that just don’t seem to improve, the doctor may not know that this person is having to make daily choices on heating their home or buying food. Similarly a social worker may find a client confused or unsteady on their feet, not knowing that the GP has changed their medication.”

Following the Cabinet Reshuffle, our CEO Paul Goulden analyses the new position of Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and discusses the ways in which this could impact upon the lives of older Londoners.